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“Oh, drop the saint-like act. You resent your brother—hey—I feel you on that, same here. We could start a Viper hate support group.”
“I don’t want to kill my brother—yet.”
Giovanni coughs. “Oh—it hits harder than you would think it will.”
“Does it?” Donatello says
I hear a choking sound and then the noise of a glass breaking.
“You have no idea how much work goes into making people think that you’re a loser. I’m exhausted from the effort of playing stupid all the time,” Donatello proclaims.
“Enrique—p—poison!” Giovanni gasps as he reels, struggling for air.
Donatello sighs. “Unfortunately, Enrique works for me,” he replies. The door to the office opens, and Donatello strides in.
“Sorry, brother,” he says, cutting the zip ties binding me to the chair. I rise, rubbing my wrists, feeling shell-shocked, and walking into the next room. Giovanni is lying on the floor. As I look down at him, he lets out another cough, and dark red blood spurts out of his mouth.
“I see why men like you never lose to men like my brother, who plays by the rules. You always have a dirty trick up your sleeves,” Donatello says, hovering over his struggling body. “And I respect that so much that I learned from you. It only took doubling your pay to make most of your men loyal to me. They also happen to think you’re an ass.”
He looks over at the wine and then at Giovanni, who has stopped struggling and now lies on the ground, almost lifeless, save for the movement of his eyes. He steps over the body on the floor and picks up the documents.
“My loyalty lies with the Russos. I’ll take this back.”
Donatello turns to Enrique.
“Take care of his body.”
Suddenly, Giovanni grabs my ankle. I look down at the macabre scene before me, feeling disgust coil through me.
“You cannot end Giovanni! You hear me?” he gasps shakily, and then he laughs. “I—I know about your debts—the ones from—”
I sigh, reach into the holster of the guard next to me for a gun, and shoot him in the head twice.
His upper body flops down on the floor with his eyes wide open, and his blood splatters around us.
“What a bother,” Donatello grumbles.
He sighs and pulls out his gun, pointing it at me.
“I thought you should know that I didn’t do this for you,” he says, pressing against the trigger before I can move. I feel a sharp pain as he shoots me in the leg. My pants soak in blood as I fall to the floor.
“It would be easier to blame Giovanni, but you always taught Bunny and me never to take the easy way out,” he grins, lowering himself to look at me.
“Why? Why would you do this?” I ask, my lips quivering in pain, shock, and disbelief.
He chuckles.
“I asked myself that a lot, too, these past few months. Why am I doing this? Why do I think that I would be a better leader than my strong, perfect big brother?”
He looks around, waving his gun.
“You are tied up, and you still managed to take down armed men,” he leans closer. “Tell me how you did it. Because at this point, even I am in awe.”
The blood coming from my leg is starting to form a small pool on the floor. As excruciating as the pain is, it doesn’t equal the painful pounding of my heart. “I wronged you, didn’t I?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” he snaps, suddenly enraged. “You’re supposed to be angry at me.”
He rises to his full height and brings his feet down directly on the gaping hole in my leg.
